"Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops, like bishops, and your religious act like religious." - Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, 1972

Sunday, June 18, 2017

GUAM DAILY POST: Claims against church exceed $530M

The last few weeks have seen a momentous development in Guam's clergy sex abuse crisis when the attorney representing more than 80 percent of the alleged victims told a federal court judge he intended to put the cases on hold as he and his clients entered into settlement talks with Hope and Healing Guam. CONTINUED

A note I posted on the news story:

If the Archdiocese follows the experienced advice of Attorney Mike Caspino and doesn't mess up, only "non-ministerial assets" will have to be sold and NO charitable works will be interrupted. But if the Archdiocese listens to the "San Francisco attorneys" and the others who want to fight this, the Archdiocese will have to declare bankruptcy and then all assets will be at the mercy of a judge. As for the picketers, their goal has nothing to do with law suits. The only goal from the beginning was the removal of Apuron as Archbishop of Agana, a title and position he still holds. So the picket will continue.

Speak for yourself. There are many people who support Archbishop Apuron. If found innocent of all charges and returned as Archbishop, the majority of Catholics will follow the decision of Pope Francis.

The Vatican will not find him "guilty" or "innocent." That's not how they work. At most they will find him incompetent to lead and will be retired somewhere, but not Guam. We already know that Francis believes Apuron to be incompetent because for the good of the Church he asked him personally to resign, twice. Apuron refused. It is Apuron who does not obey the pope.

LMAO, Diana is a bottomless pit for a good laugh. I even detect some aping, behind the parroting.Oh well!As Tim states, Apuron was asked twice to quit, and refused.The Vatican only put a Bishop on trial, in very rare occasions. You can count them on one hand in the last 25 years.Of course the putrid and his relays on island, are spinning to the max. This is a Neo specialty, more spinning and they would be full fledge politicians.You have to give them credit, for really putting a lot of effort in defending the indefensible. O'Money has sent some of his best cannon lawyers.They even encourage Burke's nomination, because they thought it fit their scenario."A poor conservative Bishop, being the victim of a vicious campaign of slander, organized by a bunch of leftist led by a real estate agent, bent on getting money from the sale of the seminary"I know they are not bothered by the facts, but like most totalitarian regime, the most outlandish it sounds, the more they think it will stick.Again, thank you for the good laugh

I think all we ever wanted was Apuron removed and some form of Justice for those he destroyed.The inaction of the Holy See to remove him led to the financial mess. As Tim always reminds us this money at the end of the day comes from the people's money. It is not Apuron's money or Church money. It is money of people of Guam. Arcdiocese arrived at this position only because Apuron sic david sic adrian were allowed to get away with their evil. So this 530M is result of 30 years of a deplorable Catholic Archbishop who was left unsupervised to carry out evil.I see logic of Caspino but honestly Church still not learnt or amended for the past so perhaps best go sue to make Archdiocese humble. I see no humility in Archdiocese or willingness to truly amend for the past. Byrnes is a good man but he has not done enough.

I never trusted Byrnes. The first thing he did was to kick you in the slats.

He didn't know Guam from a sack of sand, but the first thing he did was ship treacherous Adrian to school in Canada at your expense. He didn't care about archdiocesan coffers being nearly empty.

I've seen a lot of grinning, seemingly benign Byrnes-types and all of them were dangerous careerists who were kissing some bigshot's ass. In work environments, smart people steered clear of them because they'd wipe out all perceived obstacles.

As Americans go, Boston's O'Malley is a perfect example. If there's anything left of the institutional Church when Francis dies or retires, the phony Franciscan wants to be the next Pope. He was runner-up to Francis at the last conclave.

Fact Check - even beforeApurun fled in total disgrace he had not run the Church in 25 years. The true management team on Guam became Gennarini and Pius as CEOs, Kiko as Chairman of the board, David and Adrian as department directors of "Do Nothing" and "Do Stupid" (respectively). Apurun a peon, just call him brother Tony. Pope relegated to media relations, only to be listened to when he had a quote the Kikos could twist for their use.

Proportionally, that $530 million in abuse lawsuits is worse than the $3 billion the US Church had to cough up. It hurt, but we survived it none the worse for wear. Poor little Guam won't be so lucky. When insurance carriers smell poverty, they take a hike on claims because no one can afford to fight them.